PostPregnancy Sleep Deprivation: how to overcome this
The feeling of joy will cover you with the newborn baby. It’s an amazing period when you take your baby home to his or her nicely designed bedroom and start to take care about that little creature. But you are also putting a start to sleepless nights and sometimes depression, because you are trying so hard to be the perfect parent for your baby. You need to spend your nights waking up several times, taking a huge responsibility mentally and doing several jobs all the time. It’s not the easiest task, while your friends and family would advise you to enjoy every moment as they grow up so quickly and you would be missing these days later. They are true but it’s not that easy and you need to forgive you from feeling tired, especially when you are suffering from symptoms of sleep deprivation.
PostPregnancy Sleep Deprivation
Lack of sleep has several bad impacts on your physical and mental health. This can easily lead to stress. Stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation are directly connected and make a cycle triggering each other.
Here are the common symptoms of sleep deprivation.
- Irritability
- Forgetfulness
- Tiredness
- Difficulty concentrating
- Increased appetite
- Weight gain
- Lack of motivation
Lack of sleep changes your mood and you can feel sad day by day. usually this is called “baby blues” and commonly it lasts for 2 weeks. You are just feeling sad and moody. When it lasts longer than 2 weeks after giving birth to your child, you would need to talk to your health care provider. So there is a line between the PostPregnancySleep Deprivation, PostPregnancy Stress and baby blues.
How PostPregnancy Depression is different from PostPregnancy Sleep deprivation?
Depression starts when the symptoms of baby blues or sleep deprivation last longer than 2 weeks and become more severe. Mothers with PostPregnancy Depression may have the following symptoms:
- Hopeless
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Crying
- Reduced concentration
- Fatigue
They will have difficulties carrying on day to day life activities. In very rare cases, some mothers go on to develop postpartum psychosis. This may lead to hallucinations, suicidal ideations, or thoughts of harming the baby. So when you feel stressed for more than 2 weeks turn to your healthcare provider.
How to overcome PostPregnancy Sleep Deprivation?
Take naps – you can do this usually with your baby. They take lots of naps during the day, take that chance.
Get a babysitter – when you feel you can’t handle the daily activities and the care for your baby ask for help.
Take care of your body – never forget about yourself and what you want
Get fresh air and exercise– this is the right way to reduce the feeling of stress
Say no to additional responsibilities– don’t hesitate to say that you physically can’t manage that quantity of job. Ask for help from your partner and share responsibilities with your family.
Final notes
Keep the stress reducing steps, take care of yourself and share the responsibilities with your family. Turn them into joy, do everything with love. Be sure there are people in your family who want to take care of your baby as much as you do. Don’t be scared and be mentally strong. It’s a wonderful, beautiful period, but it depends on you, from which angle you look at it. Stay safe and hydrated!
